July 4
These are the documents that started it all.
The Charters of Freedom. As the USA celebrates another Independence Day, the National Archives presents the historical development of the Declaration, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, and their impact upon the nation and the world.
posted by netbros at 5:38 AM -
55 comments
July 3
Twenty years ago this week,
the biggest escape ever over the Berlin Wall took place, but the
event went nearly unreported outside of the two Germanies. The 182 persons who jumped over the Wall in the early morning hours of 1 July 1988, instead of leaving East Germany,
fled in the opposite direction (
scroll down to "Wolfgang Ritter") to escape the West Berlin police. East German border guards waited with trucks on the other side of the Wall in the middle of the death strip to pick up the wall-hopping protesters; they were driven to another location, served breakfast, and then taken to the Friedrichsstrasse crossing to West Berlin with the admonition to "use the usual border crossing next time."
[more inside]
posted by sister nunchaku of love and mercy at 10:01 PM -
16 comments
The Book of Accidents: Designed for Young Children (1831). "In presenting to his little readers
The Book of Accidents, the Author conceives he cannot render a more important service to the rising generation and to parents, than by furnishing them with an account of the accidents to which Children, from their inexperience or carelessness, are liable. If generally studied it will save the lives of thousands, and relieve many families from the long and unavailing misery attendant on such occurrences."
[Via]
posted by homunculus at 6:37 PM -
34 comments
The Travels of Franz Kafka , a website that chronicles the many places and social interactions of Franz. A photographic journal collection of his life as he traveled. For your enjoyment, today being the 125th Anniversary of Franz Kafka's birthday. Cheers.
posted by Fizz at 6:17 PM -
10 comments
Montreal Graffiti/Street artist
Roadsworth, who
was arrested in 2005 and faced up to 250 000$ in fines, is
back on the streets,
this time with a permit and a commission. Interestingly, the title of the new piece (which stretches across multiple intersections on downtown Sainte-Catherine street) is "Défense d'Afficher", which means "No Postering". It seems as though he's commenting on the role of art and advertisement in public space, but maybe that's just my take. Thoughts? For a more in-depth discussion, read
the Torontoist's article on graffiti), and for more examples, check out
Vandalist, the same blog's photostream of T.O. street art,
Streetsy, a great photoblog showing off various street art from around the world, and, of course, Flickr's
STREETART pool.
posted by rssaddict at 12:34 PM -
20 comments
Internet in Africa is more than just Nigerian spam. There are honest
African bloggers who fight corrupt government and police to go where mainstream journalists dare not. Compare their blogging experience with your own. Imagine the government calling you over the phone at night and questioning about a particular post you just wrote.
posted by Surfin' Bird at 11:13 AM -
13 comments
Prospect/Foreign Policy release their list of
the world's top public intellectuals(
full list). Number 1? The Islamic scholar
Fethullah Gulen.The rest of the top 10? The microfinancier Muhammad Yunus, the cleric Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, the writer Orhan Pamuk, the politician Aitzaz Ahsan, the evangelist Amr Khaled, the philosopher Abdolkarim Soroush, the philosopher Tariq Ramadan, the cultural theorist Mahmood Mamdani and activist Shirin Ebadi. Sense a theme? Yes, all Muslims.
This is a striking turnabout from
the 2005 poll topped by Chomsky, Eco and Dawkins.
What happened? Prospect Magazine
explains. The Turkish newspaper Zaman
weighs in. The UK's Independent
is outraged. Fethulah Gulen
defends himself.
posted by vacapinta at 10:17 AM -
50 comments
This is utterly delightful: Tara Busch sings the first line from "Somewhere Over the Rainbow"
backwards. Of course, you'll wanna check out how well she did it by watching it, um,
forwards. Yep, she nailed it. I think I'm in love.
[more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite at 8:01 AM -
105 comments
'Bad is good as a mating strategy' (
NewScientist PDF |
plain text). "Nice guys knew it, now two studies have confirmed it: bad boys get the most girls." Being slightly evil ensures a prolific sex life according to a survey of more than 35,000 people in 57 countries. (
ABC News: Why Nice Guys Finish Last).
posted by stbalbach at 7:27 AM -
121 comments
Google has been ordered to turn over all of its electronic records of the videos watched by users on YouTube to Viacom. The 12 terabytes of data include records of every video watched by every user, including the user's login name (if any) and IP address. Google had complained that the disclosure would invade user's privacy, but this argument was blunted somewhat by Google's
earlier statement that IP Addresses are not, in and of themselves, personally identifying information. Google was also ordered to turn over certain other information, including its video classification database schema, but was not ordered to turn over information regarding videos marked as private, its source code, or its advertising database schema.
posted by The Bellman at 6:59 AM -
236 comments
July 2
‘Even to this day the diary has a slight aroma of cocoa,’ says Steve Dickinson about a
diary kept by his uncle Robert Dickinson while a prisoner at
Servigliano, an Italian war camp, in the 1940s. The diary has a cover made of old cocoa tins (hence the smell) with a broadcast aerial design incorporating the title 'Servigliano Calling.' It begins with his capture by the Germans in November 1941, and finishes, about six months before his death, in September 1944. Via
The Diary Junction blog.
posted by amyms at 8:54 PM -
14 comments
"He grew up in a ruthlessly discriminatory world -- a world in which segregation of the races was pervasive and taken for granted, where lynching was common, where the black man's inherent inferiority was proclaimed widely and wantonly.
Thurgood Marshall had the capacity to imagine a radically different world, the imaginative capacity to believe that such a world was possible, the strength to sustain that image in the mind's eye and the heart's longing, and the courage and ability to make that imagined world real."
Born July 2, 1908,
died January 25, 1993. Had he lived, he would have been
100 years old today.
posted by alms at 8:52 PM -
16 comments
Two years since Massachusetts instituted major statewide
healthcare reform, the
statistics are coming in.
340,000 residents, roughly half the state's previously uninsured, are now insured. The state says that
95% of its population is now covered, based on Department of Revenue estimates. However, a large portion of them are enrolled through state-subsidized insurance programs, and those program's rate of enrollment have far
outpaced estimates. This has led lawmakers to forsee a budget
shortfall. Premiums and co-pays are going
up, cigarette taxes have
increased, and a
cost control proposal is making its way through the legislature. Assessments
have been all over the map.
posted by Weebot at 3:28 PM -
78 comments
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